Following a Tuneless Song
by dillpops
Summary: The Aspirin of the Bebop - Jet Black, after the fall, contemplates life and follows a familiar figure to meet halfway with Faye. One Shot. Can be read as following my Faye one-shot 'Open the Box'.


Well this is a one-shot I've written to accompany my other Cowboy Bebop one-shot 'Open the Box' which was Faye's opinion after Spike's death. Now I've written this on Jet's opinions, the only other member Bebop crew left. Faye's was in the first person, I've written this in third to give another angle of writing.

If you liked this, you might like 'Open the Box' too. Please Review, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy bebop

"Jet, I'm going out"

No reply.

"Jet, you listening? I said I'm off to hunt a bounty" Faye repeated loudly

Jet grunted at her and continued to wrestle with the new bottle of aspirin, trying to follow the instructions of push and turn without success. He threw it across the cabin with frustration, it hit the yellow sofa and bounced off, landing near Faye's feet in the metallic floor.

"Jet?"

"I heard" Jet growled, glowering at her

Faye raised an eyebrow "Don't be like that with me, just because you drank too much doesn't give you the reason to take it out on me"

"But you living in my ship rent-free and bringing in no cash does" Jet retorted and waved his hands "Go get some money Faye, then we'll see who's 'being like that' with you"

Faye ran her fingers through her hair and muttered "Fine" she turned down the hall leading to the hanger "Don't wait up" she waved absently before disappearing

Jet growled again before heaving his mass up to collect the aspirin bottle. Picking it up he tried again at the seal, no luck. He sighed and turned back to the room, surveying the cabin which served as a common room for so long with a critical eye. It was so empty. No Ed to be heard tapping away at the internet, no Ein running about getting under his feat and no long corpse snoring hanging off each end of the couch.

Their crew was getting smaller and smaller. Spike had died three weeks ago. He wasn't coming back to make wise-cracks, to rub Jet the wrong way about money, to argue with Faye and to be freaked out by Ed. He was dead. Jet knew he was going to die that day, hadn't even bothered to concentrate on the news in the evening about syndicate warfare claiming the lives of 35 men in a high-rise block. He already knew that one of those fatalities was Spike.

Jet didn't need to hear it. He'd never admit to anyone straight out that he was sad that Spike had gone, no, if anything he'd complain about the huge debt owed to him for Spike's rent, food, repairs and lost bounties. Hell yeah, Spike owed him a lot. But Jet wasn't asking.

His eye caught the pill bottle, why did people make bottles with that seal anyway? No one could open the god damn things and when you did they went over the floor.

Like Spike. No one could ever get him to open up, and when he did, he opened up way too far and ended up dead. The most Jet had ever heard about Spike's past was the day he was killed. Spike had been the Bebop's aspirin, always relieving tension with wisecracks and removing the barriers between the crew by creating fights and insults, making you interact even when you didn't want to. Jet wanted everyone to get along, but no one could rile anyone up for fight like Spike could and it always seemed that afterwards everyone would be closer together. Everyone holding the other Bebop members at arms length but still somehow close enough to feel the gaping hole left when one was gone.

Jet threw himself on the yellow couch, picked up his lighter from the coffee table and lit up a cigarette, holding in the air before blowing it out into a small cloud.

"This one's for you, kid" he saluted the ceiling with his cigarette and inhaled once more

Jet flicked his lighter on and off absently, staring at the fan on the ceiling twirl round and round, lost in his thoughts. He'd come to know that fan in the weeks since Spike's death, never before had he lain on that sofa looking up at the fan like he had then. Lying on his back watching it spin round and round helped relax him. Its quiet hum also filled the silence that had settled over the ship.

Faye wouldn't talk about it.

Jet wouldn't talk about it.

The only two people left on the ship didn't have a conversation for a week and a half, and if they spoke it was monotonous about necessity. No one would say; I miss him. No one would say; I miss them. They couldn't admit it, to admit would change everything that they relied on; the walls between each other, if they lost those then the relationship would be changed even more.

Jet sucked another drag out of his cigarette and turned to look towards the door, Spike walked past with a mock salute to him. Jet grinned and turned back to his cigarette as a slightly out of tune but jazzy whistle floated through the ship. Jet stopped smoking and looked towards the door again. The sight had been so ordinary he hadn't thought anything of it. Stubbing out his cigarette on the ash tray Jet hauled himself up and went to the doorway to the corridor and looked down it. There, at the end of the corridor was the shadow of a figure in a dark suit disappearing around the corner.

Jet shook his head, the whistled tune seemed to draw him towards the direction Spike had gone in. Jet followed but by the time he reached the door, once more Spike had turned into the center of the ship where gravity was zero. Jet followed the sound of the whistles now there were no footsteps to follow. He jumped into the anti-gravity and waited as the hallway turned around and around, the doorways passing him silently.

"Spike" Jet spoke softly "You in here?" no reply, Jet's voice got stronger as he said "Because if you are I got a hangover and I really don't want to have to listen to your god-awful attempts at music"

There was nothing, and the whistling drew closer as an open doorway came to Jet, the door to the hanger. Jet swallowed despite himself and went through. The swordfish and Hammerhead hung in their allotted areas. No sign of people. Jet couldn't even hear the whistling anymore. He shook his head and turned back into the anti-grav hall. No sooner had he shut the door than the hanger opened to admit the Red Tail. Jet blinked as Faye clambered out of the cockpit, looking no more or less rich from bounty than she had when she left.

"Jet?" she called and looked around the hanger

"Talk to the woman Jet"

Jet jumped back and looked around for the source of the voice, "Spike?" but there was no reply, just the faint smell of tobacco. Jet looked about him and then turned back to the hanger, opening the door as he did so to see Faye clambering up to him. Looking up, she caught his eye and they stopped still, watching each other.

"You know, I was thinking" Faye said slowly "That maybe we should talk, you know?"

Jet blinked for a moment, he looked around once more behind him and smelled the smell of tobacco once more before turning back to Faye. He smiled at the woman peering up at him.

"You read my mind"

_The Aspirin of the Bebop,_

_Spike Spiegel_


End file.
